Latin American countries have grappled for years with the need to provide basic services to the poor. Skewed income distribution leads to luxury apartments and flashy shopping districts a few miles from shanty towns and stolen car-parts markets. Corrupt and undependable police forces add little sense of security. Few of these problems will change in the coming year.

Politics throughout the region have shifted, however. Voters have chosen left-of-center governments in a half-dozen Latin American countries in recent years and may continue to do so. They want leaders who will pay attention to immediate social problems even if that means veering from privatization and globalization policies popular in the 1990s. Most voters feel such trickle-down policies have made little difference in their pocket books.

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